Haile Selassie

The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man’s basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act – and if necessary, to suffer and die – for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.

Provision must be made for the extension of speedy and effective assistance when any African State is threatened with military aggression. We cannot rely solely on international morality.

Do not worship me, I am not God. I’m only a man. I worship Jesus Christ.

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse?

Peace is a day-to-day problem, the product of a multitude of events and judgments. Peace is not an ‘is,’ it is a ‘becoming’.

As I reminded my girls, these aren’t problems. These are very high class problems. Because of where Barack and I come from, we just couldn’t sympathize with their… It was like, ‘Girl, you live in the White House. You do not get to complain about this.

We are desire. It is the essence of the human Soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it. Not a symphony has been written, a mountain climbed, an injustice fought, or a love sustained apart from desire. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize. – John Elderidge

There are three books my daughter felt were the most important influences in her life: the Bible, her mother’s cookbook, and her father’s checkbook.

It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean.

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told the streets in heaven are lined with gold. I ask you how things could get much worse if the Russians happen to get up there first; Wowee! pretty scary!

I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.

Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life – after that you cannot be deceived.

The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman’s construction, is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life. During twenty-three days in every month (in the absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also, she wants that candle – yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.

Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

What was never lost can never be found.

Zen has no business with ideas.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one’s humdrum life into one of art.

Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?